NBA Files Paperwork to Terminate Donald Sterling’s Ownership Rights
Image by Getty Images
The National Basketball Association filed paperwork to terminate Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling of all ownership rights in the franchise.
Sterling has until May 27 to respond to Monday’s filing. He will be allowed to make a presentation at a special Board of Governors meeting on June 3, CNN reported.
The 80-year-old Jewish lawyer and billionaire real estate investor, who was recorded making racist comments to his girlfriend, is fighting a $2.5 million fine and a lifetime ban imposed by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.
In the recorded conversation and in subsequent interviews, Sterling has mentioned Jewish issues. In a recent interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, he criticized wealthy African-Americans for not being as generous as American Jews and praised Jews for establishing Hebrew free loan societies.
According to CNN, some owners said privately — and Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said publicly — that the interview has made them more resolute about voting out Sterling.
Citing recent interviews with NBA insiders, a CNN reporter told Cooper, “If there were any owners who were concerned about should we be kicking someone out for a private tape, [they] now feel more comfortable. Because Donald Sterling went on television with you and made statements that were abhorrent to so many people, they feel as if they are on much firmer ground to kick him out.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
